March has been mega busy. And when I write this I have a massive grin on my face, as Things Are Happening and we are moving to Italy in summer.

The house is on the market, we’re trying to agree a good removal company to take all our stuff to Lucca, a new school for Izzie has been agreed, all sorts of logistics are being seen to, but yes- we are doing it! Later on this year we will be living full time in the land of the most amazing food ever.

I popped in to Co Op this lunch time to pick up some mozzarella and some cat food, but I came across the first asparagus of the season, early this year, due to a spell of fantastic weather for the last 2 weeks. I hope Italians have asparagus at least as good as the Brits here in the Cotswolds, to be discovered next spring.

I also made a batch of hazelnut macaroons, which I stuffed with the remaining coffee cream- remaining from a really good pannettone we had after Christmas. Hazelnuts and coffee, anytime!

Even more pancakes? Yes, these deserve to be mentioned here, as they really were delicious. I hardly had time to take some photos, they were disappearing so quickly! Raymond Blanc’s recipe, a definite keeper!

210 ml of milk, 3 large eggs whisked together, to this 90 g of strong white flour. 30 g of butter melted and taken to the point of beurre noisette. 15 g of sugar, I added vanilla sugar. Zest of some lemon and orange- a revelation, it all smelled amazing when on the pan. Pinch of salt. All this well whisked together and left in the fridge to rest for over an hour. This amount of batter made about 7 pancakes, we had them with whatever we liked- plum conserve, hazelnut cream, lemon juice. Will be made again, most likely as soon as this weekend. 🙂